some speakers that are this design showed up locally for a nice price. i thought what the hell, i'll give them a shot.they're hooked up to my existing amps and they sound nice and warm, very real and image well.

a friend is planning to buy my previous speakers but he wants my preamp and power amp too, no big deal, they're nothing too special.

so i'm getting very tempted with all the decware amps and preamps i've seen for sale used lately.

i have one concern, the speakers i think are 8 ohm impedance (the tweeter is 4 ohm but is has 1ohm resistor in series and a 16 ohm resistor in parallel).will something like an se84c-s drive those speakers to adequate listening levels?what about if i run it direct?a preamp would yield a little more volume as well right?

the neighbors don't need to hear it when they are in their house but i do like to have a nice amount of volume.

i've read where people say 1.8 watts (bottlehead paramourII) is enough for 85db average with 95db peaks and i've read where others have said they needed more like 10 watts in a small bedroom. am i just gonna have to go for it and see for myself???

the room is 15x25x9, hard wood floors walls and ceilings, large thick rug on floor in front of speakers.

I have a sneaking suspicion you will come up short mating those speakers to a SE84. However, a pair of SE84s "strapped" into monoblocks should do the job quite nicely. I use such a setup with "home brew" 94 dB./8 Ohm speakers, with considerable pleasure.

Because of the single tap on the O/P trafo, each monoblocked amp yields approx. 8 W. into an 8 Ohm load.

BTW, you could buy a single SE84 and check it out. If you find yourself running out of steam, acquire the 2nd "box".

yeah i thought about building one or two of the se84 kits. I kinda like the idea of being able to roll the rectifier tube though :-/

can anyone comment on the taboo sound vs. the se84cs.6 watts vs. 1.8 but after reading the article steve wrote...it seems i shouldn't get caught up in just the wattage rating.I plan on running a preamp now I think.

I am running a single Decware Select amp with a pair of 95 db efficient two way floor standing speakers in a 26' x 16' x 8.5' room and the SPLs are more than adequate for my needs. I'm not a "rocker" though and my taste in music leans to the "acoustic" and vocal side of things. It should also be said that my speakers use an extremely minimal crossover ..... just a capacitor on the tweeter. That can make a big difference, since a lot of power gets sucked up by a complex crossover. They are also a 4 ohm impedance, which the Select is really happy with.

I am also using a Decware CSP2 preamp which does a great job of getting the best out of the Select power amp. With the CSP2, there is a lot more presence and bass heft and it makes the power amp sound a lot more "muscular" ..... highly recommended.

I did get to hear a pair of strapped Decware Selects in my system and the extra headroom was not hard to live with. If my taste in music ran toward the more complex or higher SPLs, this would be the way to go.

You might also want to check out the speaker offerings from Parker Audio. They have a full line of reasonably priced great sounding speakers that are specifically designed to work well with Decware low power amplifiers ..... and they offer both pre-built speakers as well as kits.

well i got a csp1 for now.i'm curious. what are my options as far as tube rolling. i have a trio of RCA 6cg7 and the sockets look the same...will they work in this preamp?

is there a link discussing tube rolling options?i'm going to search now.

the preamp now has 3 6922's, sovtek. i have a few electro harmonix 6922 also. rectifier tube is 5y3gt.

i'm real impressed with the upper mids and the highs. so far the bass could be a little stronger but it's not bad.i'm running it through my solid state amp and i can barely turn it up. i plan on getting a tube power amp soon.

The 6CG7 and the 6922 have identical pin arrangements minus the pin 9 screen, I would go for it... but it is your amp man! Grid voltage may be an issue, UH OH! It probably is not compatible with the CSP2. The 6CG7 has less gain, and is the 9 pin version of the octal 6SN7GTB.

well, i should have a (origianl) taboo with Vcaps arriving to me tomorrow ;D

also redid the crossover in the speakers, installed a vifa ac25 tweeter...the speakers had a gr research tweeter which i found to be too bright.i was going to replace it with the vifa dx25, which the speaker was designed around. madisound was sold out of the dx25 and the ac25 was on clearance...

what a lunch. opened the package. taboo is fine.the previous owner sent a few extra tubes. :)mullard and Philco recitifers, 5u4g and 5y3g.7 extra input tubes, 12au7 by telefunken mullard and seomthing else UK made. 12at7 mullard, maybe a tungsram 12ax7 and a few others...

got maybe five sets of output tubes.cryoset sovtek, also the russian military tubes 6p15p-ep i think they are, some french tubes...also sent me a 6n1p and a few more 6922 for the csp...

kinda funny when i opened the input tubes. they are all in either white boxes, svetlana or electroharmonix boxes. i thought oh a few tubes. then i opened one and it was a mullard. so i opened them all and they are all nice tubes.

i can't wait to go home and listen to this.

what are the two pots on top of the taboo? are they for variable feedback? he mentioned setting them at the 11 oclock position which is what i read the new taboo is permanently set to.it should be the original model but it's in the black metal case.